Land/Environment

One day, when my mother was in her 70’s, she told me a story about how things had changed in her small town since she was a girl. She said, When I was a girl, things were very different. When...

I would like to whisper a quiet caution to those of us who are investing in institutional or structural reform efforts. There is an intensifying stream of efforts to reform our institutions. In theUSthere is government reform, education reform,...

What does a thriving way of life look like in a post-consumerist society? Many aspects of a thriving future can be found by stepping into a contemporary co-housing community or eco-village. To illustrate, my wife and I lived in a...

Recommendations from the founder of The Ethan Allen Institute, Vermont's free-market public policy research and education organization; widely published commentator on Vermont issues;  co-author of The Vermont Papers and editor of the Institute’s monthly Ethan Allen Letter. Herbert Agar  Land of...

The community is the natural nest for hatching new enterprise — it is the birthplace and home of small business, which provides the largest growth in employment. Friends and family often provide the capital and sweat equity to start...

The path to restoring function to the family in a citizen society, not a consumer society, is quite simple. It begins with five questions.   1. What functions can we put back into the hands of young people?  Whether they are our kids...

When family members do not work or live well together we sometimes call the family dysfunctional. We prescribe professional help for the family or advocate for social policies that would support it—child care, parental leave, extended unemployment insurance, debt...

In the beginning of Agenda for a New Economy, David Korten says he has written this book “to break the silence and open the unmentioned possibility that it is time to let go of Wall Street and build a...

The phrase social innovation is surfacing everywhere.  The European Union has just launched Social Innovation Europe.  The UK has multiple initiatives around social innovation. President Obama has an Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. The Canadian Government has established awards for social innovation. ...